Whether you just call it Allium or ornamental onion, you're probably like other gardeners and have fallen in love with this plant, mainly because of the purple flowers. But the flowers of ornamental onions are not always purple. There are also exceptions.

Most ornamental onion species have purple flowers

Varieties with purple flowers

From lilac to purplish violet to magenta and lavender, almost everything is represented when it comes to the colors of ornamental onions. Thanks to the vast number of varieties that are now available, there are almost no limits to what you can wish for in terms of intensity, brightness and mixing ratio.

Here are well-known and widespread varieties of ornamental onions that have different forms of a purple color - these varieties are perfect solitary plants:

  • 'Ostara': crimson
  • 'Gladiator': lilac
  • 'Purple Sensation': red-violet
  • 'Summer Drummer': purple

Not all varieties bloom purple!

But if you've been thinking that ornamental onions only come with purple flowers, you're wrong. There are also these plants with white, yellow or even blue flowers. For example, you can create an arrangement of different colored flowering varieties in your garden.

Pure white flowers, for example, have the varieties called 'Graceful Beauty' (March to April), 'Mount Everest' and 'Ivory Queen'. With the golden leek and in particular with the variety 'Jeannine' you get golden yellow accents in the garden.

These species/cultivars are also interesting because of their flower colour(s):

  • 'Pinball Wizard': dark pink
  • 'Pink Jewel': pink to pink
  • Giant ornamental onion: dark wine red
  • 'Red Mohican': burgundy
  • 'Silverspring': metallic white, slightly pink
  • 'Globemaster': blue to purplish blue
  • Star Globe Leek: silvery, violet
  • Gentian leek: gentian blue
  • Sulfur onion: golden yellow
  • Bluetongue Onion: silvery pink

After flowering, the color gradually fades

When the flowering period is over, the flower color slowly fades away. The seeds emerge and the former inflorescence dries up. It becomes greyish to brownish. If you want to see the color of the flowers in autumn and winter, you should cut off the blossomed flowers together with the stems and dry them.

tips

The typical purple color of ornamental onions looks fantastic next to yellow or orange flowering perennials! The purple really makes them light up.

Category:

Indoor plants